Environmental
Group Wants to Ban Toxic Products in Schools(Beyond Pesticides, November 15, 2005)
The Labour Environmental
Alliance Society (LEAS) is calling on school districts across British
Columbia to protect children by banning harmful chemicals in cleaning
products and materials used in auto shops, labs and art supplies. The
group is using a Student
Environmental Bill of Rights to raise awareness around the need
for taking action to eliminate toxins in schools. Prior to the start
of this school year, a vote by the State Senate, requires schools in
New York to use green cleaning products (see Daily
News).

According to a report
in The Brandon
Sun: Online, Sean Griffin, a researcher with the LEAS, said
that children’s health may suffer if they are exposed to toxic
products that should be replaced with safer alternatives. Griffin went
on to say, "If there is an alternative substance available by other
manufacturers that's widely used, that's as effective and doesn't contain
a hazard, why on earth would you use a hazardous substance?"

Institutional cleaning
products are often more concentrated than those used in households and,
unlike food, Health
Canada has no provisions to assess their harmful ingredients. Some
cleansers contain the chemical trisodium nitrilotriacetate, a known
carcinogen, which has been banned in several jurisdictions in the United
States, Griffin said.

Griffin told The
Brandon Sun: Online that in California and the European Union,
manufacturers are required to label products containing carcinogens.
LEAS, is an alliance of environmental groups and trade unions, that
has taken its concerns to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, whose
members clean the majority of British Columbia’s. schools. According
to the report, when the
Canadian Union of Employees (CUPE) was notified, "they were
very surprised to learn what these ingredients were."

Some school districts
are no longer using products containing 2-Butoxyethanol, which has been
shown by the International
Agency for Research on Cancer to possibly cause cancer. Barry O'Neill,
president of CUPE, said the union agrees exposure to toxins should be
limited in schools for workers, students and teachers.

According to Claudia
Ferris, a spokeswoman for the Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council,
finding out which products in schools contain toxic chemicals will be
a time-consuming project that could also involve considerable cost and
raised awareness among custodians, teachers, trustees and parents, Ferris
said.

Dr. Warren Bell,
past president of the Toronto-based Canadian
Association of Physicians for the Environment, said minimizing children's
exposure to toxic chemicals is important because their organs are still
developing. Bell went on to say, "What we need to do is make sure
that Canadian citizens are fully aware of the dimension of the problem."

Bell noted that
a new study. Pollution.
It's in You, released by the group Canadian’s Environmental
Defence shows that various chemicals including heavy metals such
as lead, DDT and PCBs have been found in the blood of eleven Canadians
from across the country. Although older participants were found to contain
the highest levels of pesticides and PCBs almost all of the volunteers
tested positive for stain repellents and flame-retardants found in drapery
and carpets.